


caught in the middle

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Series: after laughter [8]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: because i love jason so im rewriting the show oops, but spencer is cooler than both of them, im so proud of her, jason dilaurentis is a good brother and toby is a good husband, peter hastings is a douche, spence graduates law school!!!, utter retconning of jason dilaurentis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 12:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: Spencer graduates law school, Peter Hastings is rude about it, and Jason DiLaurentis reveals some long buried secrets.





	caught in the middle

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted to say THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH to everyone whos been reading and commenting and leaving kudos. it means sososososososososososo much to me and i love you guys! your comments literally make my day and i appreciate them so much!
> 
> also this is a complete and utter retcon of jason dilaurentis because i love him. i hope you guys can accept that <3

Against every odd in the universe, Spencer graduates law school.  

When they call her name at convocation, she hears screaming so loud that it almost makes her cry, almost makes her laugh, but mostly makes her cheeks go bright red as she crosses the stage and collects her diploma. She can just about separate their voices too; they yell and shriek like they’re at a  _ high school _ graduation for God’s sakes. She picks Aria from Emily from Ali from Hanna and it makes her whole heart swell; she hears Caleb yell, _ that’s my girl _ . The only person she doesn’t hear yell is Toby, and she knows why when, holding her diploma on the stage, trembling so hard she can barely move, she turns to face the crowd, the professional photographer hired for the event going off in her eyes, and just before she’s momentarily blinded, she meets his eyes - his beautiful eyes, tears trickling slowly down his cheeks. He is clapping, flowers shoved into his elbows, and he is not yelling because she knows he’s been waiting for this; because he knows exactly what she needs. 

_ You made it, _ he mouths, she can just make it out.  _ You made it, I love you. _

She only grins before hurrying off the stage, back into her seat, her heart beating so hard she can barely believe it, marveling at the diploma between her fingers. Her school is one of the few that gives out diplomas on the day of graduation, and she is so glad as she cracks open the leather case, fingering the creamy black words.  _ Spencer Hastings.  _ She is now Spencer Hastings, J.D; she’s made it all the way up to here, and the emotion rising in her is so heavy she can barely breathe.

She twists around in her seat and sees Toby again, and again he mouths.  _ You made it, I love you. _

Her heart is bursting, she is aflame, and for once, it’s in the best way.

\--

She collides with her friends in the parking lot first, they crowd around her, shouting, and she thinks of the high school graduation they missed out on and there are tears streaming down her face, hot and salty in her throat, as they envelop her.

_ “Spencer Hastings, J.D - ” _

“You made it, you made it, you  _ made  _ it - ”

“I’m so proud of you, I’m so - oh, my God, Spence,  _ babe  _ \- ”

“This is just confirmation you’re the smartest of us all - now you have a  _ law degree  _ to prove it - ”

“A  _ law degree!” _

She hugs them in rounds, not bothering to hide how much she is crying, and then hugs her mother, then hugs Melissa, then hugs her father. Everyone is being civil today, and it feels almost better than having a J.D.

Nothing ever will, though, probably.

Jason is there too, and it’s kind of weird but mostly okay. And of course, Toby, her Toby, whose arms she leans into when the initial screaming has died down somewhat. Toby, who kisses her in front of everyone, and she feels about sixteen all over again, and thinks about the kiss outside the haunted house, ten years ago, remembers her mother’s eyes on her back like daggers and not giving the slightest damn.

_ We’ve all come so far, _ she thinks, feeling dizzy, feeling drunk, feeling the purest, most elated form of happiness she’s felt, maybe since before everything began. Maybe ever. And it isn’t entirely because of the law degree, she realizes, as they pile into cars to go to lunch.

It’s because she’s going to lunch, with Emily and Alison, with Hanna and Caleb, with Aria, who is standing on her own two feet. With her mother, her father, Melissa; with Jason, hanging back with Alison most of the time but there all the same. With Toby, his arm wrapped securely around her shoulder. They go to lunch together, and she looks at all the people she loves - looks at her friends.

_ we made it,  _ she thinks, again and again and again.  _ We made it all the way up to here. _

It makes her cry again, but in a good way, this time, she’s pretty sure.

“So, Toby,” says Aria at lunch, her voice bright, her eyes bright, looking genuinely happy, and Spencer aches with gladness. “You’re whizzing our girl off to London now?”

There is gentle laughter, and Spencer does a quick mental double check to make sure everyone knows, then winces in guilt when she sees her dad’s face. She forgot to mention it to him. But, to be fair, their conversations have been scattered extremely few and far between over the past half-decade, much less the past two months.

Veronica’s come to family counseling sessions with her, and Melissa’s made a real effort too. But Peter never wants to hear about any of it, not the counseling, not what she’s trying this week in terms of natural remedies. She thinks it isn’t that he doesn’t care, but rather, that he doesn’t want to deal with it. Also, most probably, that his guilt for his role in the situations she’s been in over the years is too overpowering to speak about her recovery from it all.

Which is selfish, but she’s trying to forgive him. They just don’t end up talking much.

Her father, she knows, is a bridge she’ll have to cross someday, a trouble that she won’t be able to keep burying forever. But today, she’s graduated from law school, and at least he’s at lunch.

(She still calls him after marathons, breathing hard into the phone, gasping out her time. And even if it’s ten minutes slower than usual, he’ll say, sincerely and without fail,  _ I’m so proud of you, Spence. I’m so proud of you. _ )

Maybe too much has passed between them all to ever have the relationship she had with her father all those years ago. But they have, if nothing else, his pride - if not in her mental health journey of recovery, then in the length of her stride; in her academic achievements. It isn’t much, but it keeps the afloat.

It just involves forgetting to tell him about trips to London.

“Well, that’s the plan,” says Toby, grinning. 

“That sounds good,” says Peter, and it wouldn’t be so awkward if he wasn’t so obviously aware of how awkward he’s making it. “How long are you two kids - are you two going? To be gone for?”

“Well, we’re not  _ entirely  _ sure yet,” says Spencer, exchanging a glance with Toby. “Jason’s going to be covering for Toby at work..”

“‘Course I am,” says Jason, grinning, definitely not looking at Peter Hastings. “Least I can do for my main man.”

Aria giggles a little at this, and Emily, Alison, Hanna, and Spencer achieve a very subtle four-way smirking glance.

“And my new job doesn’t start until January,” says Spencer. “Theoretically, we could stay out there until then, but.. we’ll see.”

“Well,  _ I’d _ love to have eight months in England,” says Melissa brightly.

“It might not be eight months,” says Toby diplomatically. “We could get sick of it and come home next week.”

“Oh no  _ way, _ ” says Melissa intensely, the joke flying neatly over her head. “London is something you have to do  _ properly. _ It’s  _ not  _ something that can be seen in a week. Or a month. Or a  _ year. _ ” she sighs. “I still miss it, sometimes.”

There’s a brief, tense silence as everyone pretends not to think about Wren.

“So!” says Veronica. “are you two planning on going anywhere else, in Europe? Or sticking to England?”

“We might go to Paris,” says Spencer, shooting a grateful look at her mother. “And Toby wants to go to Italy.”

“What about the bar exam, Spence?” says Peter, frowning slightly.

“Well, the agency I’m working for, I’ll be a legal editor,” says Spencer, painfully aware of all the conversations she has not been having with her father. “So, that doesn’t require a bar. And after all those years in academia, I was thinking anyway about.. you know. Taking a bit of a break.”

“You don’t want to wait  _ too  _ long before taking the bar, though,” he cautions. “After all, you don’t want to forget how to study.” He chuckles, and something tightens in Spencer’s chest as she meets Aria’s uneasy eyes.

“Well, I don’t know if attorney is the goal,” she says lightly. “So maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“Anyway,” says Aria brightly, everyone looking at her in surprise. “It’s not like Spencer would ever forget how to study.”

This draws gentle laughter, and the conversation should shift, but Peter Hastings, of course, is incapable of picking up on such social cues, which Spencer tells herself is a mean way to think about her father, but she can’t stop it. “All I mean,” he says, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin, “is that there’s no real point, is there, of going to law school - of  _ paying _ for law school - without then taking the bar, afterwards. I mean, a lot of people would say that was the point. Waste of time otherwise, you know? Why gallivant around Europe when you can be making use of your degree? It’s what you paid for, is all I’m saying.”

There’s a still kind of silence at this, because of the pure absurdity of saying something like that over a celebratory graduation lunch, and Spencer looks down at her plate instead of at him, hating the way he can make her feel like an inadequate sixteen year old the same afternoon she  _ graduated from freaking law school. _

_ I paid for it, you ass,  _ is all she can think - paid for both law school, and every stupid, stupid mistake Peter Hastings ever made, she and her friends paid for it, and he has the audacity to sit at her graduation lunch and put her down for career choice.

In another world, Veronica Hastings might’ve glanced at him sharply, tempered him with a  _ Peter.  _ But their divorce was so contentious and bitter that she can’t even look at him to defend her daughter, and Spencer doesn’t blame her. At this very moment, she regrets even inviting him to lunch, even to graduation itself.

In this world, though, surprises are around every corner, because of all people in the world, (of all Peter Hastings’ kids, for that matter), it is Jason who speaks up then. “Well,” he says, laying down his fork. “I’d say Spencer worked her ass off in law school, got a J.D., and has the right to do anything she damn pleases with it. And gallivanting around Europe seems like the right move to me.”

“Especially if it’s with your main man, right, Jason?” says Aria, grinning again; more laughter, the mood restored, and this time, Peter Hastings had the good sense to stay quiet. 

“So, girls,” says Veronica, looking at Ali and Emily - all of them will always be  _ girls  _ to her mother, Spencer thinks, and it is somewhat comforting. “How are the kids?”

Stories and gushings burst out of Ali and Em at once, Hanna and Caleb chiming in immediately to talk about Ashlynn's own progress, and all talk of gallivanting around Europe is left behind for the time being, to Spencer’s deep relief.

\--

After lunch, Toby invites Jason back home with them, the others going back to their kids or work. Spencer is exhausted and would like nothing better than to curl up in bed for a few hours, preferably but not necessarily with Toby, but she doesn’t mind the idea of spending some time with her brother. Over the years, she’s come more and more to think of Jason as a real brother. She is aware that she’s, genetically and biologically, more fully related to him than Melissa, and even though she grew up with Melissa, these days, it sort of feels like that too.

It helps how well he and Toby get along. It’s sort of adorable actually, in a very construction guy, manly sort of way.

“You want a beer, man?” asks Toby as they walk into the house, Jason pausing to examine the door hinge. Spencer hides a grin. She doesn’t think there’s anyone on earth Toby would offer a beer upon walking into the house other than Jason, who she feels he has a slight impress-the-man complex towards.

“You did a real job on this, man,” Jason says, sounding impressed.

Toby tries to laugh casually, but it comes out as far too excited, and Spencer tries really hard not to laugh, too. At him. “oh, well, you know. That was all of us, man.”

“Do men have to add every sentence with  _ man?”  _ says Spencer dryly, dropping her purse to the ground, startling both Jason and Toby into laughter. She stretches. “Toby, make me tea, please.” She wanders into the living room, feeling even tireder now that she’s home, and sinks into her favorite chair. She listens to them in the kitchen, laughing, and smiles slightly. Jason turns down a beer with grace, and she’s proud of him, wondering how many years clean he is. 

_ I graduated law school,  _ she thinks. It doesn’t feel quite real, but it is, somehow.

Then,  _ maybe my dad’s right. Maybe I am wasting my degree. _

Law school had done its best to wring her brain out every single day for the past three days, and that was good, because she had needed something to pour her brain into. It was the best way she could think of to deal with everything she was busy dealing with; it was something to do, good, useful,  _ endless  _ work. Work she was good at. 

But she thinks she always knew she wasn’t in it to actually become a lawyer - it was never her goal. She’s always wanted the degree, but has been more interested in going back into politics, which was a field that, although biting and not always entirely ethical, she genuinely did enjoy for the few years she lobbied. Moreover, when she got the internship at the editing house, she loved the work, she wanted to stay in it - so receiving the job offer was the best thing for her, practically.

She doesn’t want a lot of money, just enough to live on. And even though working hard was a good way to get through the heaps of anxiety and PTSD and all that, she has a feeling that she’s reached her limit - that she needs rest. She needs time, she needs some months without constant pressure and anxiety. 

Because the thing is, she had gotten so used to living with constant stress and anxiety and panic, that law school had been almost a comfort while she was starting to heal. It was like a balance - bit by bit chipping away at the massive amounts of anxiety amassed vis a vis the trauma; but on the other hand, just as much anxiety remaining. Anxiety is horrible, and she hates it, but at the same time she’s been living with it for so long she wouldn’t know how to live without it. In the strangest way, it grounds her.  

In the worst way, she doesn’t know who she would be without  _ some  _ constant, stressful weight tying her down. 

She realizes, however, (or did it help from her therapist) that this isn’t really the right way to live life. So, all things considered, this is probably the best route of action. For the first time in her life, she will live with not only no stress (except for the debilitating trauma, but that’s a whole other story) but with nothing to  _ do.  _ Unless she starts studying for the bar, or picks up part time work.

But when she thinks of flying away to England with Toby, she gets an image of herself running one of her marathons. Spencer loves running; it’s freeing, it’s healing, it’s one of the best gifts she’s given herself. But this is a marathon shes been running forever, her whole life, with no water breaks. A marathon she’s been running with two tons strapped onto her back and her ankles and her wrists, only growing heavier, year after year. A marathon she is used to, but her feet have been slashed to ribbons. But she’s forgotten what it feels like to breathe normally. But she’s forgotten what it feels like not to be running, running, running, heavy, heavy, heavy.

She thinks of flying away to England with Toby, and the race stops. She can lie down. She can even put down the weights - maybe not all of them, but she has the strangest feeling like getting away from Rosewood, moving away from it all physically, will help more than anything has so far in moving away from it mentally, too.

And the idea of that is incredible, and enticing, and her mouth tastes like peppermint and Christmas every time she even considers it. Fresh. Free. Not only something new, but everything new.

_ And I’ll come,  _ she reminds herself every time.  _ I can always come home.  _ Rosewood is where she began, and she thinks that Rosewood might be where she ends, and she kind of wants it - for all she’s been through here, it is her base, and maybe  _ because  _ of all she’s been through here, she knows that even though this town was where everything fell apart, piece by piece, year after year, this is the town where it will come back together. She knows it in a way that she can’t explain; a way that she can never vocalize.

But all roads always lead to Rosewood. They always will. And she’s accepted this, for a while now - and it’s only given her peace.

There is a big world, such a big world out there, and she has seen so little of it, and never fully appreciated the parts she did see, because of the paranoia, the stalking, the pain, the torture, always,  _ always _ that fear. And the fear isn’t gone now, but it’s so much less. It is time to see the world - time to leave town, time to see what she has not seen.

But then she will come home. Maybe this year, or maybe the next. Maybe the trip will stretch on further than she could ever thought possible, but Rosewood will always be part of her future.

(It’s because of her girls. She is incomplete without any of them, and here is the only place they can all be together.)

(Or maybe it is because it all happened here. Here is where it began, and here is where it must end.)

“Spence?” She jerks out of her reverie and laughs - Jason is in the doorway, a ridiculous grin on his face, proffering a tea tray. “Your tea, my  _ lady, _ ” he says, and she keeps laughing as he sweeps over, serving her dramatically.

“Thank you very much,” she says. “I see you’re also having tea?”

“Well, yeah,” he says, “since I’m at my sister’s post-post-graduation-lunch-tea, I thought I might have tea. Yeah, Toby?”

“ _ Yeah, _ bro!” says Toby, grinning, settling in with a Coke. Spencer resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“So, our dad’s two favorite hobbies, apparently,” says Jason, taking a sip of tea and looking so utterly ridiculous Spencer can’t help but laugh some more. “Having illegitimate kids, and then insulting them for their life choices, at law school graduation.”

Spencer snorts. “Yeah,” she says, taking a swig of her own tea, less gracefully than Jason does. “That about sums the great Peter Hastings up.” She sighs. “He didn’t used to be like that.”

“If you say so,” says Jason, wry but good natured. “Never got a chance to see for myself, unfortunately.”

“It isn’t  _ that  _ unfortunate,” says Toby dryly, and Jason laughs.

“DId he used to threaten you, Tobe?” he says. “ _ Stay away from my daughter.. _ ”

“He tried, once,” says Toby, grinning, meeting Spencer’s eye, sending an inexplicable flash of pure happiness through her.

“Oh yeah?” Jason leans forward. “What happened?”

“I bought him a truck,” she says matter of factly, and he bursts into laughter.

They talk into the evening, about old times and new times and good days and bad days and the trip itinerary (or lack thereof.) after a while, Toby rises, wandering into the backyard to put out food for the multiple cats they have accrued. They are all carefully named, and for a while, Spencer insisted they were backyard cats and not to be doted on, but sure enough she fell for them.

No one loves the orange babies as much as Toby, though. She knows he’s going to spend at _ least  _ twenty minutes out there.

“He loves those cats,” she says to Jason.

“Yeah.” Jason suddenly looks oddly uncomfortable, as if he’s about to say something that he’s been putting off. “Uh, Spencer. I’ve been…” he clears his throat. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

There was a time when this would send Spencer into a panic, but frankly today she is too tired. Also she can’t imagine Jason of all people saying anything that would send her into a panic. (There are more important things to panic about. And she does, regularly.) “Oh, really?” she yawns, stretching out her legs. “What’s that?”

Jason takes a deep, long breath. “The N.A.T. club.”

She freezes. “What?”

“Yeah. I - sorry. I - should I go on?”

She clearly looks shaken, and she forcefully shoves her thoughts and reactions into a box, locks the box, and puts it in the dark recesses of her mind, which is actually exactly how her therapist has told her not to deal with these situations. She looks at Jason and feels her heart plunge, feels her brain snap, feels that old fear creeping up her spine.

But she needs to know.

“Uh - yes.”

“I’ve been thinking for a long time that I need to tell you this,” he says in a rush. “About what I - ”

“Jason. Please.” She feels slightly sick. “I don’t - I don’t know if I want to - ”

“THis is probably selfish of me to even tell you,” he rushes on, “but I think you deserve - I think you deserve to know. Because I..’ he swallows. “I don’t ever want you to feel unsafe around me. Please. Just..”

_ I didn’t, until you brought it up again,  _ she thinks, dizzy suddenly. THere are some parts of the whole situation she’s just unabashedly blocked out, and to be perfectly candid, the N.A.T club in its entirety is one of them - one because it was so long ago, two because two of the three perpetrators wound up dead, three because they never solved that mystery, never found out what connection they had to the A game, and if there’s one thing from her past that she cannot bear to delve into, it is unsolved mysteries.

“It was Garrett, and Ian,” he says. “And it was me. And that entire summer..those entire two years, actually. Without a hint of exaggeration, ninety percent of that summer, I was high, drunk, or both, off my mind.”

She swallows, her guard receding somewhat as what he’s getting at brings itself into view, fuzzily.

“I want you to know,” he says, and it’s as his words are coming from somewhere far away. “That I’m not excusing my actions that summer. Those years. They were deplorable.  _ Deplorable. _ If I can take it back, I would, and if you want me to go to the police now - ”

“What good would it do?” she cuts in, cold, something like ice rage slicing through her body. “We have no proof.”

Jason takes a breath. “Look. I’m telling you this because I want you to know. My involvement in that was deplorable. I - it’s one of my biggest regrets in life. Maybe the biggest.” He takes a long breath. “I was a messed up, screwed up, effed up, broken kid from the wrong side of every kind of..whatever. The point is, though, I want you to know that I - my involvement in that was  _ only _ not telling anyone what was going on.”

Her head is spinning, more and more slowly. “Are you saying - ?”

“I  _ never, _ ” he says emphatically, “set up one of those cameras. Never looked at a tape. I swear on my biological mother Jessica DiLaurentis’s grave that I had nothing to do with the N.A.T club aside from my ill advised friendship with those two scumbags.”

“But your yearbook quote - ”

“I know. It was - Garrett put it, and Ian put it, and I put it too because they were my best friends and I wanted to be part of whatever they were part of. But I was too out of it to ever know what was going on. I didn’t - I wouldn’t have. Maybe it was because of some trace of - I dunno - decency, but probably because I was too off my head.”

There is a long silence between them. And somewhere in her room ten years ago, Spencer thinks absurdly, she is sixteen years old and crossing Jason DiLaurentis off her suspect list.

_ We know who it is now, _ she reminds herself.  _ And it wasn’t him. _

_ Hardly any of it was him. _

The thought gives her almost dizzying relief. She has long since put aside this particular point of her issues, but to realize that Jason’s only crime was non action - which is for certain a crime, but not the kind of crime she has, in the very back of her mind, assigned to him - is something of a weight lifted.

It’s like she gets to put one of the weights down. The race isn’t over, but it just got a tiny bit easier.

“Thank you,” she says, her throat aching when she speaks - she is so near tears, she realizes, she actually might have been near tears all day - “for telling me. That..means a lot.”

_ and also, _ chimes in the part of her mind that has maybe always liked and trusted Jason more than the rest of her,  _ now he has free reign to date Aria. _

The thought makes her smile, but it is Jason’s crumpled, sorrowful face that makes her move towards him and hug her brother tight.

\--

That night when she is finally,  _ finally _ in bed, she curls up into a ball, pressing her face deep into Toby’s chest, savoring the warmth and safety. she thinks there is nowhere in the world safer than their bed, his arms around her, her face in his chest. It is the kind of oddly weak seeming behavior she tries to stay away from in daylight, except when panicking; burying her face into her boyfriend’s chest. But here, it is heavenly.

“Toby?” she murmurs.

“Spence,” he says in her ear.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“For what?”

“For never, ever doing any of the single things I suspected you of doing.”

This doesn’t make any sense, but maybe he gets it. He holds her tight, and she drifts off to sleep, dreaming of putting down her weights and lying in a field of soft grass with the love of her life and clouds up ahead.

  
  
  



End file.
